522 govt schools in Umerkot district functioning without buildings

DC asks education works officials to ensure provision of buildings with all standard facilities

HYDERABAD: As many as 522 government schools in Umerkot district, a large part of which is covered by desert, are functioning without buildings.

Deputy Commissioner (DC) Nadeemur Rehman Memon at a meeting in Umerkot on Thursday directed the education works officials to take steps to provide buildings to such schools with all the standard facilities.

The DC also noted that the names of the retired and deceased government school teachers still existed in the bio-metric attendance system and asked the officials to remove those names.



Referring to the prolonged absences of 535 school teachers from duty, Memon directed the education officials to take departmental action.

He said that the education department should regularly update the bio-metric attendance record because of routine transfers and retirement of staff.

The district coordinator of Local Support Unit Luqman Nohri pointed out the shortages of teachers in the district during the meeting.

According to him, against a total of 432 vacancies of junior elementary school teachers (JEST), only 142 teachers will be appointed after qualifying the Sukkur IBA test. Similarly, he added, only 24 early childhood school teachers will be appointed against 34 vacancies.

He said that 2,247 schools in Umerkot have been given Sindh Education Management Information System (SEMIS) code while 498 have been issued the tracking IDs. He said that the single room schools are being merged with bigger schools located in 500 metres proximity.